Nettles Gives Clues About Sugarland’s Next Album

Sugarland singer Jennifer Nettles told reporters at the 2006 CMT Music Awards that she and duo partner Kristian Bush expect to have a new album out in late 2006 or early 2007. She won a trophy on Monday night (April 10) for collaborative video of the year for “Who Says You Can’t Go Home,” a duet with Bon Jovi.

“Obviously, [the release date] is contingent upon who else is releasing theirs,” she says. “Whenever Tim McGraw is releasing his, Sugarland is not releasing theirs! Once that game is all played, it ought to be somewhere in that window. Right now, Kristian and I are writing. We’ve been writing with other folks and loving what we’re doing. We’ll see. We’ll see. It feels rootsy, organic and very much Sugarland.”

Asked whether any of the songs will be written by Kristen Hall, who left the band in January, Nettles said, “Right now, we don’t know yet. She’s writing with other folks, and we wish her very well. Kristian and I have been writing together and just enjoying and exploring that and what we can do together and what we bring to another outside writer. We’ve been writing with some Nashville folks and seeing what we bring to it. … It’s an exploration for us and it’s super fun. As it stands right now, there are some older songs we have written with her that may show up on this record if it fits the whole vibe, but we’ll have to see what the journey of it is.”

Currently, “You Can’t Go Home Again” is No. 3 on Billboard’s country airplay chart. Nettles says that although she loved Bon Jovi’s music already, the pairing was “an experiment.”

“A lot of times you hear about a country artist crossing over, but you rarely hear when they cross over into country from rock ’n’ roll,” she said. “I thought, ’Well, this will be an experience.’ I tried it. I thought it was fun, and it added something to it. And they seemed pleased. And from there, it progressed into the CMT Crossroads [episode], which was huge — huge — for us. A really big deal. Then we did the video, and it continued to climb up the charts. So they’re excited, I’m excited and it’s nice when something works.”